I Miss Shadowrun

No, Shadowrun hasn’t gone anywhere… I just miss it. Shadowrun was one of the first games I played (as I’m sure it was for many gamers my age) after looking beyond the initial embrace of D&D. Shadowrun was a “cool” game, a game that I was introduced to through conventions and gaming stores once I started ranging out on my own.

In many ways, Shadowrun is the perfect game for my tastes. It has built-in assumptions of a healthy dose of investigation and role-playing mixed with complex, dangerous, and exciting combats. It mixes magic and technology in a fairly seamless whole and has very interesting character creation that is deep without being needing to be overwhelming. To be fair, character creation in Shadowrun can be overwhelming — but it doesn’t need to be.

I’m also quite fond of the set up for a typical Shadowrun experience. Shadowrun lends itself well to playing short, discrete adventures (something I’m very fond of). This thought is really what prompted this post today. I love the default format of the Shadowrun adventure… you get a call, you get a job, you go on a wild run, you close out the job. Each session can be a unique action movie. But Shadowrun can also be the world’s best sandbox too. It’s easy enough to transition from assigned runs to an open world style of play where the PCs work their contacts and relationships along with becoming involved in larger, more complex plots that they’ve touched on in earlier adventures. It’s almost a perfect natural evolution of a campaign.

For a while, I had a thriving community of Shadowrun players around but the vicissitudes of time and life have left me ‘run-less. And as much fun as it is to read new Shadowrun books, I just miss Shadowrun…

Sorry for the personal post… but dangit… if you want to send me Shadowrun players in the mail, I’m accepting donations!

Glad to hear I’m not alone in that. I know that for some players they hate the “plot of the week” style of play, but I’m a huge fan – especially when I’m allowed some time to interact with the larger world/web of contacts and NPCs that builds up around a runner team.

No idea where you are located, but what about a convention? I ran over 30 hours of Shadowrun games at Origins, and over 40 hours at Gencon. We will have games at Con on the Cob in mid October, and Ohayocon in January 2013. I know it’s not the same as a regular campaign, but it’s something. Also, Shadowrun will be represented at the online convention Aethercon. Just a thought. Hope you find a game!

It’s a good suggestion. My first experience with Shadowrun was actually a con scenario. I’m in Virginia – kind of close to the West Virginia border — so I’m not really close to a lot of “bigger” cons. I might have to look up Aethercon – that’s a new one on me. Thanks!